“Do you have your list?” D asked. We were sitting at his kitchen table. He had set out a package of Oreos.
Fucking snack doms, man.
“Yeah.” I pulled it out of my pocket, my stomach fluttering. Noticed his look of disapproval. “What, do you want me to get a Trapper Keeper?”
“Proceed with caution.”
“Sorry.” I left off the “Sir.” It felt more natural.
He had me read each item. Then we talked about it. That seemed weird at first. Did I really have to turn “Tripped Steve at work” into the Gettysburg Address? I hadn’t done too much this week that I felt guilty about, but I hadn’t wanted my list to be too short, so I’d put a lot of dumb stuff on it, just to give him things to punish me for.
But what surprised me was that talking about the list was fun. In order for D to understand the significance of each transgression, he had to ask me about the context. When I got to “Teased Miles about dressing like the girl from the old Footloose before she gets slutty,” he asked me about my friends.
I looked up from the paper. “What about them?”
“You say you’re close with them. What are they like?”
I was sort of touched that he wanted to know. “Uh, well. Miles is incredibly smart. He’s sexy in a kind of Amish way, and he knows everything about kink. If you’re a dom you probably couldn’t wish for a more awesome sub to do a scene with—except it would be like having sex with Wikipedia.”
D laughed, a sharp bark that startled me. I grinned too.
“He’s older than the rest of us,” I went on. “And has a really involved work life. He runs his own T-shirt–design company.” I paused. “Sometimes I wonder if he thinks the rest of us are too immature for him.”
I grabbed another Oreo. Popped it in my mouth and chewed.
“And Kamen’s the nicest guy you’ll ever meet. Total doofus, but I mean, like, helps old people cross the street, the whole deal. He’s a musician. Works as a cook at the Green Kitchen. We went to high school together.”
“And you both ended up in the scene?”
“Yeah.” I brushed crumbs off my shirt and into my hand. Then I wasn’t sure where to throw them, so I just held on. “His mom’s in the scene too.”
“His mom?”
“I know.” I very subtly emptied my fistful of crumbs onto the floor. “They mostly stick to different clubs, but it’s still crazy. He’s from, like, BDSM royalty. His grandma helped found one of the first women’s leather groups in the country.”
“So it runs in the family?”
“Apparently. I like his mom. She’s nice. Just a little intense.”
“And . . . Gould, is it?”
I hesitated, smiling. “Have you ever had someone you’re—you’re not in love with that way, but they’re still your soul mate?”
“Can’t say I have.”
I shook my head. “That’s Gould. I adore him. I live with him. I want him to plan all my birthday parties. I want his face on a fucking calendar. I love hearing him in the house, making sandwiches or watching Bloodline or whatever. But I’m not . . . I don’t want him to be my boyfriend.”
“You just love him.”
“Exactly. I just want to squeeze his adorable-ass guts out in a way that doesn’t hurt him and then have him reconstitute so I can do it again.”
“That is not a type of relationship I’m familiar with. But okay.”
He took an Oreo. Twisted it apart and licked the frosting out of the middle. It got in his mustache. So, I mean . . . there was cream in his mustache, and I was super mature about it.
“I recommend it,” I said. “Everyone should have a Gould.”
We moved on to talking about how I’d wanted to start applying to hair schools but instead had spent the week killing time on Facebook. I didn’t mention to him how truly guilty I felt about that particular item. It just seemed too complicated to get into the whole issue of how I was incapable of doing anything to advance myself career-wise.
“All right.” He rose when I was done. “Let’s go upstairs.”
I was really happy to go somewhere not the Den of Horrors, until it occurred to me that the upstairs might be worse.
It wasn’t. Two bedrooms, framed posters of national parks on the hallway wall. No pictures of family.
We went into the first bedroom, where a brief but potent fantasy of D throwing me down on the bed and fucking me dissolved as he ushered me toward the bathroom. The bathroom needed a serious makeover. There was some mildew around the ceiling, and the walls were done in 1950s Awkward Sea Foam and white. D rummaged in the linen closet and pulled out a child’s yellow plastic potty-chair and two thick but faded towels. He set the potty-chair next to the toilet and the towels on top of a rack by the door.
I was liking this less and less. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, Sir. I am actually potty trained.”
He stopped and stared at me for longer than I could hold my winning smile.
“Anyway. Uh, carry on.”
He stared a moment longer, and I looked down at the floor, pretending to be interested in the tiles. He reached back into the closet and pulled out a box that, unfortunately, I recognized.
A red bag enema kit.
“Sir?”
He looked at me. “Yes, David?”
I suspected pointing out that I didn’t want an enema would do little to discourage him from administering it. “Nothing.”
“You said you’ve had enemas before.” D opened the box. “Any reactions I should know about?”
“I whine a lot. And yell that the agony of a thousand plagues is inside me. I sometimes also beg for the mercy of a swift death.”
“I meant reactions to the enema’s contents. I’ll use soap and water, which shouldn’t cause anything but cramps. Has an enema ever made you sick or dizzy?”
“Sometimes I get a little dizzy when I expel, but not bad. I do get . . . um, never mind.”
“What?”
I sighed, my face heating. “One time I shit in a guy’s wastebasket because I couldn’t make it to the bathroom. So maybe my self-control’s not as good as some people’s. Fair warning.”
“Well, the good news . . .” D turned his attention back to the enema. My stomach dropped as he removed the red water bottle from its packaging, then pulled out the length of ribbed tubing. “Is that you get to decide when to expel. If you need to go before the eight-minute mark, you’ll use this.” He kicked the potty-chair. “If you can hold it eight minutes or more, you can use the toilet. Like a big boy.”
I flushed from my ears all the way down to my chest.
He looked at me. “How does that sound?”
“Uh . . . fine.”
He turned and took a large plastic cup off the closet shelf and filled it with water, then set it on the counter by the sink. Reached into the closet again and snagged a bar of soap, which he handed to me. “Unwrap that and run it under the tap, please. Get it good and lathered, then set it in the cup.”
Lathering the soap brought back unpleasant memories of last week. I set the bar in the cup and watched it cloud the water. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him screwing the nozzle onto the tube.
“We’ll let that sit for a while.” D set the bag on the sink counter and grabbed a towel off the rack. “Come on.”
I didn’t fight.
We returned to the bedroom. Now that I got a better look at it, I wondered if it was even his bedroom. It didn’t look used. And there was a photograph on the wall of a large black horse with a thick neck and a long, flowing mane and tail.
“Is this your room?” I asked.
“Guest room.” He spread the towel on the bed.
“You have a framed picture of a horse in your guest room. Do you secretly have an eleven-year-old daughter?”
He glanced at the wall, then over at me. “That, David, is a Friesian. A medieval war horse known for its grace and beauty, courage in battle, and immense strength.”
“And you’re a fan, huh?”
He stepped beside me and put his hands on his hips. “I am indeed an admirer. I should very much like to own a baroque-style gelding someday.”
“I don’t even know where to begin with that.”
“I wanted to offer guests something pleasing to the eye.”
“Do you also subject all your guests to bowel cleansing?”
He squeezed my shoulder. “Strip.”
I did. Slowly. Kicked my clothes away when I was done. He gave no indication he was particularly aroused by the sight of my naked body, but I went ahead and imagined a raging erection in his pants.
“Come on over here.” He walked back to the bed and patted the towel. “Knees and elbows. Ass up as high as you can get it. Legs spread.”
I took up the position on the bed, hoping my ass looked incredible. I rested my forehead on my folded arms.
“Higher.”
I stuck my ass up a couple of inches higher.
“Who do you think invented enemas?” I asked. “Like, who thinks, ‘You know what would be a great idea—’”
His hand connected with my ass so hard my forehead slid off my arms and onto the towel, and I got towel burn. “Ow! What was that for?”
“For fun.”
I turned my head to the side, waiting for the sting to fade. He placed his hand on the burning spot, and I jumped. Relaxed gradually as he soothed away the worst of the smart with his thumb. I blinked at the wall, hardly daring to breathe. He had some calluses along the top of his palm. I loved the feeling of the rough skin against the heat of where he’d swatted me.
“Do you notice a pattern in things you wrote on your list?” he asked.
“Uh . . . they’re all things I did?”
He swatted me again. “More specific.”
I thought about it. “It’s all stuff I said without thinking. Or did without thinking. Impulse, I guess.”
“Very good.” He ran his nails lightly over the little bumps he’d raised on my skin. Pleasure spread from the back of my neck down my spine. The burn from the swats had faded into an almost pleasant prickling, and I shoved my ass toward his hand. “Holding two quarts of soap and water requires self-control. So while you’re holding your enema, I want you to think about specific ways you can implement self-control day to day.”
“I love your life-lessons approach to discipline.” I tensed in anticipation of a third swat, but it didn’t come. “I can’t usually think about much when I’m holding an enema,” I confessed eventually.
He pinched me. “Try.”
I heard him go back to the bathroom and run water.
Fuck. I didn’t want to think about trying to hold two quarts of water for eight minutes. And I definitely didn’t want to think about using the potty-chair. I pressed my legs together.
He came back into the room, and I turned my head to the other side to watch him approach. The red bag was bulging, and he’d put the nozzle designed for vaginal douching on the end of the tube, rather than the small, tapered anal nozzle. The vaginal nozzle had a thicker, bulbed head and multiple holes. I briefly considered telling him I couldn’t do this—that I’d take an extra spanking or something. I’d been glib with D about my past enemas, but in truth, I hated them. Hated the complete loss of control over my body. Hated the cramps, hated the mess of expelling—worse if the dom was watching.
But afterwards I usually felt better. Physically and, sometimes, emotionally.
There was a small hook on the wall about six feet from the floor. D hung the bag from it and pulled a small bottle of lube out of his pocket. He slicked the nozzle generously. Then he reached over and tapped my ass. “Legs open. Ass up.”
I moved my legs apart again, arched my back, and thrust my ass up as high as I could. He spread my cheeks and smeared some lube around my hole. It was cold. He started to push the nozzle in, and I clenched without meaning to.
“Relax.” He gave me a warning pat.
I gritted my teeth. “Easy for you to say.”
He slipped the nozzle in despite my hiss of resistance.
I shifted as he forced it deeper.
“Do we have to do this?” I mumbled, turning my face against my arms again. I was curious about what he’d say.
“No. We don’t.”
Part of me was disappointed. Wanted him to say yes. Wanted him to tell me to keep my mouth shut—that this was my punishment and I was going to take it.
He put a hand on the small of my back. “But I think this will be a good way to practice doing what you’re told instead of getting what you want.”
I hesitated, then nodded into my arms. Fair enough.
“Hold still. I’m going to start the solution flowing. Once it’s in, you’ll stay in this position and hold it as long as you can. Fight me, and I’ll be happy to spank you while you’re holding it.”
I nodded again, my voice AWOL, my stomach tight.
“David?”
“Yes, Sir.”
He hesitated a moment, then gave my lower back a brief rub. “You’ll be all right.”
“I know.” I barely got the words out.
He reached over and unclamped the tube. There was a gurgling sound, and a few seconds later, several tiny streams of warm water hit my insides. The solution continued to burble as it filled me. At times I swore there wasn’t even any water coming out, just soap bubbles. I tensed as my stomach began to distend and the pressure on my bladder grew.
I buried my face deeper in my arms, trying not to think about what was inside me and how it was going to feel coming out. My gut cramped, and soon I ached from my chest down to my hips. I set my jaw and swayed gently back and forth. I was not going to lose control.
“Why don’t you tell me what you are, David?” D suggested quietly.
“Huh?” I managed.
He stroked my ass with his free hand and started fucking me slowly with the nozzle.
I grunted. “Don’t . . .”
My cock stiffened in spite of my discomfort, and my breathing grew rougher. I whimpered in panic as the round head of the nozzle brushed my prostate, and my back arched up like a cat’s. If he kept this up, no way would I be able to hold it.
“What are you?” he asked.
I let out a long sigh and got back in position. “A human. Twenty-six years old. About six one—”
He fucked me faster. I moaned and clenched around the nozzle.
“You really want to play this game?” he asked.
I clenched harder, trying to stop the nozzle moving in and out. But he didn’t let up. “Ow. No. This is the worst game. I give up. What am I?”
“You’re a naughty little boy.”
I froze. My cock hardened considerably. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Gross.”
“Oh. So it doesn’t do anything for you, to think of yourself that way?” His voice was different—softer, raw. “As a bad little boy who needs to be punished?”
OMG, stern seventies dad. All the nasty and all the hot.
I struggled to breathe. “N-no.” A drop of pre-cum slid from the head of my dick.
The red bag gurgled. He patted my thigh, jamming the nozzle deep inside me. He pulled it all the way out, so that water fountained onto the towel and my legs—then speared it in again.
I groaned.
“Say it, and I’ll give you a break.”
The cramps were excruciating. My guts roiled, and the more I tensed my stomach, the worse it got. But I didn’t know how to relax without ejecting everything, nozzle included. “I’m not going to say it.”
“No?” He spanked me once. Hard.
I gasped and curled my hands into fists.
Again. My throat tightened. “N-no.”
Another swat so hard it took my breath away. “Why not say it? You know it’s what you are.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “I’m a—I’m a naughty . . . little boy.” I wished the bed would fucking swallow me up.
“You are.” He placed a hand gently on my stomach. I winced, trying to pull away, but he rubbed careful circles until I exhaled. He didn’t say anything else.
I wriggled against the towel, my cock painfully swollen, my face flaming.
There was a click, and the solution stopped flowing. D stroked my hair back from my forehead, tugging it lightly. “Halfway there.”
“Ughhh . . .” It was a weak protest. I thought about the potty-chair, and shame made the heat spread through my entire body. I wasn’t going to be able to hold this for eight minutes. I wouldn’t even be able to hold it until the bag was fully emptied. I closed my eyes, on the verge of a freak-out.
D petted me for a few seconds, and I held myself rigid, determined not to make a sound. Another click, and water rushed into me again.
I opened my eyes. “I have to go.”
“David.”
That was all he said, but it was enough. I shut up. I stayed still and quiet until the bag hissed and bubbled and finally emptied. D clamped the tube shut again.
He pulled the nozzle out of my ass. A little water spilled onto the towel, but he didn’t scold me. He held my ass cheeks together for a moment, as though to help me keep it all in. Then he stood and took the enema equipment into the bathroom. I used his absence to groan into the towel. Another cramp hit, and I fought it even though I knew that only made it worse. What I needed to do was breathe through it, but I was afraid of losing control. I rolled my face against the towel and kicked the bed.
D came back, and I froze, remembering that I’d promised I’d stay still. I couldn’t take a spanking with my stomach hurting like this. Absolutely couldn’t. Keeping my face buried seemed like a good option—if I couldn’t see him, maybe he couldn’t see me.
He sat beside me, and he smelled like the woods. I focused on that.
“Five more minutes.”
I nodded.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Cramps,” I muttered. Another one hit. I let out a shuddering breath and crossed my ankles, holding position as best I could.
If I shit on his towel, D would probably never fuck me. I would cease to be a sexual being in his eyes and would instead become an un-housebroken puppy, or an incontinent old man.
A bad little boy.
The words seemed silly, and yet they gave me a jolt of heat every time.
D reached under me and rubbed my stomach again. I closed my eyes and sighed unhappily. By the time he took his hand away, I didn’t hurt anymore. I started to think maybe I could last the full eight minutes.
“I can make this feel good, you know.” His voice was very soft.
“What, Sir?”
“An enema.”
I snorted, still refusing to look at him. “I doubt that.”
“An erotic enema can be—”
“Oxymoron.”
He ran his hand lightly over my ass, and I shivered. “If the receiver is completely relaxed, and herbal tea is used as a solution . . .”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up.” I turned my face toward him, forgetting, for a second, about the chaos within. “You want to put tea up my ass?”
“It’s incredibly soothing.”
“You’re incredibly psychotic. I work with tea. I don’t want to think about it that way.”
“Coffee enemas too. Very cleansing, and the caffeine kick is intense.”
“That’s weird as f . . . It’s weird.” Another cramp. I sucked in a breath.
“You know, enemas might be my favorite punishment,” he said. “I love spanking, but giving an enema is . . .”
“Better than bacon?” I ground out.
“Nothing is better than bacon. But ripping the last ounce of control from someone is as close to bacon as you can get.”
I managed one deep breath. “You’ve got a long way to go if you want to rip all my control from me.”
“Really?” He drew his finger lightly down my crack, and my balls tightened. I lost all ability to think or speak or move. “You feel in control right now?”
I felt like my ass was up in the air, my bowels were full of soap, and that the dude from the Saw franchise was standing over me. “Totally.”
He patted my ass. “Okay, little boy.”
Nooooo.
Why? Why every fucking time he said it, did I want to come?
Humiliated as I was, there was something about this I liked. I liked being here with him. I liked his attention on me.
“Would you touch me?” I whispered.
“Hmm?”
I lifted my face from the towel. Stared at the blue-and-gray striped pillows. “If you were giving me a, uh, an erotic enema? Would you touch my cock?”
“Your cock, your ass. I’d run my nails up and down your thighs until you spread your legs for me.”
My breath caught, and my dick touched my belly, leaving a damp smear. And I wasn’t the only one into this fantasy. His voice and breathing were ragged.
“Two minutes,” he whispered.
The cramps wouldn’t let up. I twisted the comforter in both hands and moaned. Everything hurt. My head, my stomach, my knees . . .
Fuck, I was gonna go. I was gonna go right the hell now.
I sprang to my feet and rushed for the bathroom. I looked at the potty-chair and realized in an instant there was no way I could use it. It would be a mess, and humiliating, and just . . . no. I sat on the toilet.
D came into the bathroom a few seconds later. Getting rid of the enema felt too good for me to worry about what D was seeing or hearing, or the fact that I was disobeying him.
I just sat there helplessly until I was almost empty. When I could think clearly again, I looked up and caught his expression, which was . . . not as ominous as I’d expected.
“Sorry.” I covered my face with my hands.
“David.”
I moaned. “This is so embarrassing.”
“You do realize you’re very appealing when you’re not performing?”
I lifted my head. “What?”
He had a hint of a smile on his face. “The brat is fun. But this is better.”
I went back to staring at the floor. “I’m shitting my brains out. This is not sexy. And it would be awesome if you’d leave.”
He didn’t.
I closed my eyes and tried to pretend it wasn’t me making these sounds. “Please leave?” I asked softly, sincerely.
“All right. You can shower when you’re done. I’ll be downstairs.”
As soon as he left I finished up, flushed, washed my hands, and started looking for towels so I could build a towel ladder and escape through the bathroom window. When I couldn’t find enough towels, I contemplated just throwing myself out the window. But this was only the second floor, and I was pretty sure the fall wouldn’t kill me. So I got in his goddamn shower, cleaned up, then went out to the guest room to get dressed.
I stood there for a moment, holding my clothes and staring at the picture of the Friesian. “Who are you?” I asked it in a harsh whisper. “Who the fuck loves horses and watching people shit and tighty-whities and Davy Crockett? A fucking psycho, that’s who.”
“David?” D said behind me. I closed my eyes and let out a long hiss of breath through my teeth.
Shoulda jumped out the window.
“Of course you’re standing right there.” I spoke as calmly as I could, without turning around.
“Tea or coffee?”
“Cyanide, please.”
He laughed, low at first, and then heartier than I felt the situation warranted. In spite of myself, I started laughing too.
I heard him sit on the bed. “Come on over here.”
“I’m good here.” I kept my gaze on the Friesian. Majestic. Regal. Strong. You are the Friesian, Dave. Be the Friesian.
“I can get a paddle,” he offered.
“You’re such an ass.” I walked over to the bed and plopped down beside him. Glanced at my soft cock, still red from the shower. I wanted to ask if I could put my clothes on, but maybe . . . maybe I was okay like this.
After a long silence I said, “The brat thing—that’s not just an act. It’s me.”
“Partly,” he agreed. “But I think a lot of it’s nerves.”
I stared at my hands. “Could be,” I conceded.
“I do the same thing.” One side of his mouth quirked when I looked at him. “My act is just different from yours.”
I studied him. I had suspected since our first meeting that there was more to him than bacon and silence. I wanted him to tell me who he was. Where he’d grown up and what his favorite holiday was and what songs he sang when no one was around.
I shook my head slightly. “I don’t know how to stop. I’ve always played like this—the arguing and the never shutting up. I don’t know how to stop,” I repeated, more urgently. I was asking him for something, but I wasn’t sure what. “You’re right. I don’t know how to submit.”
“Maybe you need to be pushed.”
Yes.
No.
Fuck.
“I know a lot of subs who’ve gotten ‘pushed,’” I told him bitterly.
“Not forced,” he clarified. “Pushed.”
I knew what he meant. And it was exactly what I wanted. Except how was I supposed to say yes when every day on the review blog more subs came forward with stories about a time when some dom had justified throwing consent out the fucking window by saying they needed to have their limits stretched?
“It happened tonight,” he continued quietly. “We went past the point where you could control your reactions. And now you’re talking to me as David. Not as . . .”
“Superbrat?”
His mustache twitched. “If what you want is a game, that’s one thing. But if you want real discipline—where you are held accountable for your actions and where the consequences to bad behavior are truly unpleasant—”
“This was unpleasant.”
“You have to trust me.”
“Why should I?” The question was sincere. I didn’t know him. I didn’t know how much of his interest in my life was real, and how much was just him needing intel in order to concoct devious punishments.
“Do I make you nervous?”
I gave my head a quick shake. He didn’t. Or not any more than any other dom. In fact, he made me less nervous than most.
“What’s so hard about obeying me?” His voice was somehow rough and gentle at the same time.
I opened my mouth, not sure how to put it. “I don’t want you to take advantage.”
“Take advantage how?”
“I don’t want to say ‘You get to decide what I need,’ and then have you turn it into some kind of free-for-all. Or have you make me feel guilty if I don’t want what you want.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” he said simply.
I knew he wouldn’t.
I tried to figure out what to do with the mess of feelings inside me. “I’m . . . Maybe you don’t know this, since you don’t hang out at the club much. But last year, my friend Hal . . .” I broke off.
“Ah.” D shifted back a few inches. “That kid who died? I didn’t realize he was your friend.”
“A really good friend. Part of my group.”
“I’m very sorry.”
My chest clamped tight. “Me too.”
Hal would have been the bad boy of our nineties band. The one in the black jeans and leather jacket. The one all the tween girls would try to redeem in fanfiction.
After a minute, D spoke again. “I knew him. Or, I did a scene with him once.”
I stared at him. No way. Hal would never have . . .
No, Hal definitely would have. Would have played with anyone strange and demanding and be-stached. Would have found D funny, just as he’d found Bill funny.
“You did?”
“Nice guy. We weren’t a great match. But he was something different.”
I laughed. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“Must’ve been hard to lose him.” D sounded gruff.
I nodded, digging my nails into the comforter. “For so many months, my friends were . . . not themselves, and I hated it. But I knew if I could just keep them laughing, or keep them annoyed with me—anything to distract them, basically. So I kind of learned to be a real brat, instead of just playing one on TV.”
I paused.
“I get so tired of being that guy. I don’t want everything to be a joke. I don’t want to annoy the shit out of you. I mean, sometimes I do. But not all the time.”
“What if I said I thought I could handle it all? The brat, and everything else you are?”
I looked at him again, and he looked back at me. I saw a Crockett-esque determination in his gaze. I saw how close his hand was to mine on the comforter, and there was something like the strike of a match—a flare of warmth and fear and hope.
I smiled tentatively. “I would say be careful what you wish for.”
We leaned toward each other. His lips brushed mine, and his mustache scratched me, and I sank into the kiss, letting it slow my mind and quicken my heartbeat. Some people got kissed under fireworks or on Ferris wheels or by rivers. I got kissed on a bed under the watchful gaze of a warhorse while I was still damp from the shower I’d had to take to clean up after an enema.
Roll with it.
His mustache rasped once more against my upper lip and the underside of my nose. I murmured and let him lead, heat winding from my chest down to my groin.
We pulled away, both of us suddenly awkward.
“That’s, um . . .” He turned away.
“Yeah.” I scratched the back of my neck.
“That’s all I had planned for your punishment, so . . .”
“I should get home.” I stood and started dressing. I was so fucking confused. He was supposed to be my experiment for the review blog. And I was supposed to be his project of the month. So why did I feel so . . . urrrrrrghhhhhhhh?
“David?” He was still looking at me.
“Hmm?” I couldn’t get my zipper up.
“Maybe we could help each other lose the act? What do you think?” He sounded tentative.
I grinned slowly. “We can try.”
He reached out and zipped my fly. I stared down at his hand, which lingered at my crotch.
He could do it, couldn’t he—take control of all the little things? All I had to do was stop resisting, and he’d . . . he’d help me, right? Help me hold an enema, help me not panic over a spanking. Help me zip my goddamn jeans. He’d help.
I glanced up at him. He pulled his arm back to his side.
“I’ll, uh, see you next week.” I offered him a handshake.
He accepted. I felt those calluses again along his palm. He met my gaze briefly, and I couldn’t help it—I wanted to kiss him again. Then we both turned away.
“See you next week,” he said.